Etched on the City
by Steals Thyme
Summary: A collection of vignettes, centering on Rorschach, and Dan/Rorschach – some friendship, some slash. This update: Rorschach detaching from humanity.
1. Sulky Age

"You're young," he said. It sounded accusatory in his affected growl, though truly he was just a little surprised. Nite Owl can't have been long out of his teens, at least a good five years younger than himself.

"Not _that_ young— ow, goddammit Rorschach!" Nite Owl hissed as Rorschach extracted slivers of broken goggle lens from one cheek.

"Sorry." He dropped the splinter of glass onto the tabletop. "Hold still."

"I can take care of myself," Nite Owl pouted, despite evidence to the contrary. "I wasn't expecting you there. You distracted me."

"You can't afford that kind of slip, Nite Owl," Rorschach retorted, nettled by the kid's petulance. "You need someone at your back if you can't adapt quickly to the unexpected. Lucky you still have both your eyes."

He watched Nite Owl press his lips together, knowing it was to stop them trembling. It had been a close thing, and the reality of it was beginning to penetrate now.

"Was that an offer?"

Rorschach's breath caught in his throat. It wasn't, but Nite Owl was looking up at him, and his eyes were soft and far too trusting.

He was so young.


	2. Outfits 5c

The moment he saw it, he knew it had to be his.

It was rather battered, true, but looked well-made and the felt was mostly undamaged. It sat forlornly in the middle of the yard sale table, balanced atop a stack of dog-eared magazines and paperbacks: _The_ _Maltese Falcon_, _The Lady in the Morgue_, a slew of _Perry Mason_ and back issues of _Black Mask_.

The band was purple. He'd seen a bolt of fabric that would be a reasonably good match, forgotten out in the back room.

Walter slid a nickel to the disillusioned teen sitting behind the table. The boy glared at him when he popped the collar of his trench, so he returned in kind, then tipped his new fedora over his eyes and strode away.


	3. Disintegrate Knowing

Dan had always wanted to know, had even asked once. He'd been rebuffed brusquely for his curiosity, told in no uncertain terms that the mask never comes off. Nite Owl may be Dan, but Rorschach was Rorschach.

It had quickly become a game for Dan; to assess the men he passed on the street, to measure their features and try to imagine their mouth and jawline under shifting inkblots. They never fit, never quite.

The game became a fantasy; one day, maybe, Rorschach would peel off that latex. He would trust Dan enough to let him see his eyes (they'd be brown, or maybe blue) and they'd be piercing and needful. He'd whisper his name in Dan's ear, a word of power that would unlock the man, bring him undone under Dan's hands as they... as they...

It had cut sharper and deeper than he could ever have expected, to be cheated of that. An illusion shattered into myriad fragments, impossible to repair; the injustice stinging as it all collapsed around him.

He saw his face for the first time, broadcast to millions.


	4. In Dreaming

He doesn't like to sleep.

It's the time between waking, and true wakefulness that is most dangerous; distorted minutes that pass like hours, each second marking a new epoch. Dreamscapes unfurl seductively, amorphous and pliant, too easily malleable by his unconscious mind.

It's here that the air thickens like molasses, renders his limbs heavy and useless as he tries to push, pull, run. It slows his fist as it arcs through the air, eons pass as it connects, ripples flesh and sprays crystalline droplets that hang, perfectly spherical, refracting chemical rainbows. The movement on his periphery is languid and balletic, the sweep of a leg at head-height executed as though submerged in water, but there's the faintest gutter of air against his face that draws lines across his vision, and this is the part, this is the part—

His fist becomes an open hand, palm against hot skin that writhes at his touch, flexing and contorting in a sickening rhythm. Those beads of color are like teardrops, elongated as they slide in graceful curves over solid muscle, painting the shape of the body beneath him in a slick, glistening veneer. He tenses, silhouette arciform against illuminated brickwork, a poorly-timed feint that leaves him vulnerable, the pale curve of his throat laid bare. He is pared away, defenses stripped from him with every guttural cry, each heady gasp of exertion or lust or pain that belongs in the heat of battle and not here, not here—

Endless minutes bleed out into something intolerable, finding dangerous connections as they seep through his maze of walls.

He doesn't like to sleep.


	5. Deny Critical

Rorschach bundled Daniel into the back of the cab, one hand against his shoulder to keep him upright, the other pressing a soaked button-down to his abdomen. The driver was female, but he had already made a string of compromises tonight that were less important than his partner's life. He was too out of his depth to be unbending this time.

"Hospital," he said shakily. His growl and bravado had vanished into his pocket along with his mask. "Quickly!"

"Oh, _Jesus_," the cabbie choked, eyes wide in the rear-view mirror. "What happened?"

"Mugging," Rorschach replied. It was the truth, it just wasn't Daniel that had been the target. Not until he'd interfered, anyway, still in civilian clothes since it had been broad goddamn daylight and Rorschach had still been at his day job. Daniel had tried to stem the worst of the bleeding himself, and Rorschach had followed dark, clotted streaks through his apartment to find him huddled in the corner of the bathroom, shaking and barely conscious and pale, so pale.

The journey was a blur, over quickly yet taking too damn long as Daniel's head lolled onto his shoulder, Rorschach's fingers were sticky and becoming numb from pressing down and the smell of blood was cloying, obscene. The cabbie helped him with Daniel into the hospital and he couldn't remember if he paid her for the ride, or even offered. His brain itched, couldn't dwell on that now.

He'd been bombarded with questions; everyone wanting names, addresses, details of medical conditions, information that he didn't have, and the bluntness of their inquiries made him bristle. He gave them Daniel's name, might have told them his own, he couldn't recall – probably had, must have – resentfully gave them Daniel's address, told them it was his address too. What was his relation to the patient?

"My partner. We're partners."

And so he waited, coffee clasped in trembling hands and the pungent smell of disinfectant thick in his nose. Some of the nurses regarded him with tight-lipped disapproval that he didn't understand, yet others with sympathetic eyes that made his stomach clench and throat tighten.

Hours and hours, coffee and coffee and coffee.

Daniel was awake when he was ushered in, curtains quietly closing behind him. Rorschach saw the immediate flicker of recognition in his eyes, despite his stranger's face. And then Daniel said his name – the name he had tried to lose, had thrown away like so much trash.

Rorschach carefully placed his empty mug at Daniel's bedside, and left.


	6. Chapped

_Written for the comment_fic community on lj – the theme was _things you can do with your mouth_ and the prompt was _chapped lips_.  
_

* * *

The winters are always tough, longer hours of darkness means more crime, more murder, more gang activity. Unforgiving weather is another enemy, beating them with heavy rain, or coating the streets with glittering ice, waiting to steal their feet out from under them. It's the kind of cold that makes Dan Dreiberg's bones ache, wind cutting through the thin spandex of his costume and reawakening complains from old injuries, sense-memory of a knife wound, blade flashing against his skin.

It's coldest on the rooftops, staked out in high places without the crowding city to buffer them.

Rorschach tugs the collar of his trench up and pulls his scarf tighter to his neck, the only concession to the temperature he ever makes. There's rustling from his pocket, and he pulls out a couple of sugar cubes. Dan tracks his gloved fingers as he deftly unwraps them, hooks up the bottom of his mask with his thumb, and pops them into his mouth with a puff of respiration that dissipates in the air.

"They look sore," Dan says. The inkblots fix him with an expression he recognizes as quizzical. "Your lips," he clarifies. "look sore."

"Fine," Rorschach replies, pulling his lower lip through his teeth, scraping the skin. A sliver of blood wells up in a cracked seam, and he flicks his tongue out to lick it away.

"That'll just make it worse," Dan fumbles through the pouches on his belt. "C'mon man, that can't be comfortable rubbing against your mask. Here." He twists the lid off a tub of petroleum jelly and holds it out to his partner.

Rorschach stares at him. "Disgusting," he mutters.

"What?" Dan looks indignant. "I use it to lubricate the grapnel mechanism. It's fine. Look, here–" he tugs off a gauntlet and dips his thumb, rubs it across his own lips. "It helps."

Rorschach's mouth tightens into a disapproving line, eyes drawn to the shine on Daniel's mouth. Indecent, slicked up like a whore. He licks his lips again, feels the bite of frosty air as the moisture is flayed away.

Daniel is frowning at him, obvious even with the goggles and cowl obscuring his features. He leans forward and Rorschach reads the telegraphed gesture a moment too late, jerking aside so Daniel's thumb tracks viscous goop over his cheek. "Daniel," he growls in warning.

"Are we gonna have to do this the hard way, buddy?" He isn't frowning any more, he's smiling and he's leaning in – slowly this time, cautiously – hands firm on Rorschach's shoulders.

His mouth is soft and soothing against his chapped lips, and he's right, the jelly does help. It mingles with the scent of him, coffee and oily rags and Nostalgia and when Rorschach shivers, it's not because of the cold.


	7. Succumb Hexagonal

It was simple in theory; put on the mask and become someone else.

Someone free of weakness, pity and remorse, emotions that might stay his hand in the heat of battle and spare those truly deserving of his retribution. Free of those crawling base desires of lust and greed and insidious want, cravings that decay a man, rot him from the inside until the slightest pressure makes him cave like a sodden bee's nest.

Never so easy in practice.

Of all the things Rorschach expected to find in these rancid alleyways, the companionship found in a solid friend at his back was not one of them. Companionship became partnership, and Nite Owl became his conscience, his assurance that this purification of blood with blood and dirty rain, was right and just.

He became the one to insert a fractured concept into Rorschach's carefully constructed dogma, instilling an abstract idea that Walter Kovacs dared to seize upon and cradle in bruised hands, twisting and smoothing the jagged edges until it fit, almost, and let it spread spread spread.

He was riddled beneath the mask, chambered like honeycomb.


	8. Ambivalent Prayer

It's a sensory overload, like violence flaying his skin, leaving him raw and exposed to the city air. Daniel's mouth is so hot against his neck, like a searing brand, and he trembles and trembles against his hungry kisses, hands straining, pushing against him even as he arches and moans like a whore.

"Please—" he whispers, and it's an appeal and a prayer and desperate rejection and consuming need, and his fingers are tangled in Daniel's hair, holding him away. He's kneeling, kneeling in front of him and looking up and he wants to hit him, bloody that soft mouth, wants to kiss him hard and tell him how wrong this all is, thrust the knowledge into him. Wants to place his hand on his brow like an absolution.

Daniel's teeth scrape him and it hurts, and it's good because this should be painful; physical sensation to match the blinding ugly colors behind his eyes and the broken glass and wire in his chest. He's too tense for an inquisition and it burns inside him tortuously, makes him scream like a heretic, an inarticulate plea to the divine for forgiveness.


	9. Doze Fortune

It's not often he stays overnight, and even less frequent that Dan catches him sleeping. To find him like this, with his hat and gloves on the coffee table and trench hung on the door, is pretty much a one-time thing.

One arm is flung above his head, his hand lax against his face. The inkblots coil lazily in rhythm with his breathing. Dan crouches next to the armchair – slowly, quietly – and just watches for a moment.

The palm of his hand is callused and deeply creased, the lines picked out with grime and god knows what. Dan remembers childhood summers at the state fair, the gaudily painted caravan that housed hanging crystals and gewgaws and a mysteriously-garbed old woman. She had told him he would be a successful businessman. He still recalls the way his father had smiled and smiled at him, proud and expectant.

It's all a load of bull, Dan thinks. Nothing to worry over, the way Rorschach's lifeline severs so abruptly.


	10. Rules of Architecture

_Captcha fic – the origianl prompt words were _flying dawn.

* * *

It's been a hard night, the way every night is hard. It is the nature of their work.

Murder tonight, a young woman with a smiling neck. Blood drains into the gutter, thinned by a persistent drizzle that frays her dark hair from its braid and spreads it around her face like a tarnished halo. Her emptied purse is found half a block away.

Every night is hard, but some nights are harder than others.

Daniel takes them up in Archimedes; higher than Rorschach has ever been, and the change in air pressure makes his ears crackle and ache in his skull. A moroseness hangs over them both, rendering the cockpit quiet; umbral and unreal in the graying light, with the cloud-bank beneath them and the infinitude of the universe above, impassive and immutable.

He's never been this far above everything.

The co-pilot's seat creaks as his weight shifts from it, and he walks over to lean against Archie's glassy eye. They're in a holding pattern and the subtly shifting vibration of the engines reverberates through his palm in a familiar, anticipated rhythm.

The clouds are like a field of churned ash, cooling lava that is slowly smothering the city beneath. It's still raining below them, and below this shroud of vapor. A dense mist of gray like stirred-up sediment, it filters between brick and cement, bringing stains of iniquity back to the surface to bubble and froth.

Daniel is standing behind him, slightly to his left and just inside his peripheral vision. "Wait," he murmurs, barely audible above ambient thrumming. "Not long now."

A sliver of white light breaks over the horizon, ripening quickly to limn the cockpit in rich gold, refracting flares and speculars through the clouds and painting the spectrum of color along metal finishings.

And the clouds, peaked and rippled as if by a colossal hand, the clouds are bleached pure and white, vibrant against the pink-blue sky. It's as if the ash has melted away, sunk through and bled out onto the streets below, leaving only this pristine tundra.

It's like cotton candy. Even as he sneers at his own trite simile, Rorschach's tongue presses to the roof of his mouth in a phantom memory, compressing soft-spun threads of sugar into a sweet, dense wad.

There's a weight on his sleeve; Daniel grasping his trench between finger and thumb, mouth in a half-smile, miles away.

Only when his hand slips and their fingers brush does he pull away.

He's never been this far above everything, and it's hard.


	11. Covenant

_Written for the comment_fic community on lj – the theme was _changing just one thing _and the prompt was _Dan doesn't quit being a costumed hero when the Keene Act is passed.

* * *

It's raining out. It batters against the brownstone windows, greys the skies and brings a preternatural darkness to the August evening that is not easily banished by the warmth of your kitchen.

You're propped up at the table, nursing a rapidly cooling cup of coffee. There's a paper in front of you, the newsprint smudged and grey where a damp-gloved hand had splayed over it. The headline stares up at you accusingly.

He'd been so angry.

Furious.

You'd never seen him like that before. He'd been getting stranger these past couple of years, more unpredictable and solitary, but always controlled. Always knew what he was doing, even if you could no longer anticipate him.

And you hadn't anticipated this. Not the way he had shaken bodily, the way his mouth had twisted under the rucked-up mask. The vicious, unguarded words, usually reserved for other people – people who are less good – raining down on you, because of your decision. He'd raved at you, each fragmented sentence crumbling into barely-connected words, coherence and eloquence shattered into useless splinters. You had just sat there, bearing it silently, and that had only spurred him into a harsher and more impassioned tirade, ranting like a scorned lover.

He was never a good negotiator.

You'd asked him if he wanted you to change your mind. Disregard what you believed was the right thing to do. Compromise. For him.

You would never have believed your friendship could be destroyed in so few words. He'd been so _angry_.

The rain pelts down.

Your clock is ticking too loudly.

The owl on your coffee mug is damning you. Turning it around doesn't help.

[#]

You find him with ease, he is still working the rape case from last week. He's got your suspect up against the wall, fingers clawed around his neck, and the man is gurgling and twitching in a way you don't like. Rorschach's mask is shifting in a way you like even less.

You pull him away, and he's shaking hard, rain-soaked and strung out. You aren't surprised when he hits you, an open hand stinging across your face.

You smile, despite the tang of blood on your lips. You deserve it, for thinking you could walk away from this.

From him.

Even for a moment.


	12. Who, Being Loved, is Poor?

_Written for the comment_fic community on lj – the theme was _in the bedroom _and the prompt was _Walter's bed.

* * *

He understands now, why Rorschach was so hesitant to bring him here. The mildewed wallpaper; bare floorboards; sagging, narrow cot. It's only because Dan guilted him into some reciprocation for his hospitality that he is standing in this grim little apartment, and boy does he feel like an ass for it.

"Can go now," Rorschach – _Walter_ – says, upper lip curled in what most people would interpret as a threatening snarl, but what Dan has learned means self-conscious embarrassment, with a dash of humiliation.

"It's not that bad," Dan says weakly.

Walter stares at him

"Okay, it's, uh. It's horrible. But—" He walks Walter backwards to the bed; the mattress groans obscenely as he pushes him down to sit. "—I don't care."

"Hrrm," Walter says, skeptical.

Dan straddles him, tipping his chin up to steal a kiss. "Better than an alleyway, or rooftop. It's okay."

Walter huffs out something approximating a laugh, tips Dan onto his back. The sheets are stiff and unwashed, and smell overwhelmingly of _him_; of sweat and blood, that inimitable brand of violence. Dan shudders in a breath and closes his eyes, lets it wash over him as Rorschach peels away his clothes, presses against him and into him.

There is no headboard to pound against the wall, but they can make the bedsprings shriek for mercy.


	13. Being Flexible About Things

_Written for the comment_fic community on lj – the theme was _with a twist _and the prompt was _Walter was a gymnast.

* * *

Dan first discovers how limber his partner is when they're overpowered one night; beaten down by an organized gang that is a notch or two better than the usual thugs they deal with. They're left unobserved, hands cuffed behind their backs, while their captors gloat over their victory.

Rorschach rolls his shoulders and crouches to step through his arms, plucks his lock-pick kit from his trench pocket and has them both freed in less than two minutes. Eleven minutes after that, there is no more gloating, and the gang members are laid out across the gritty asphalt.

"Wow," Dan says, open-mouthed. "I didn't know you could do that."

Rorschach dismisses him with a customary grunt. There's a lot that Dan doesn't know about him, after all.

-

Dan entertains a fantasy of bending Rorschach against the mattress until he creaks.

-

It's obvious he's had some gymnastic training, now that Dan's watching for it. He would be embarrassed that he hadn't noticed it before – the quick, easy way he swings himself up a drainpipe; the effortless flip to his feet after he's been caught out and dropped on his back – embarrassed, if he wasn't sure Rorschach was deliberately putting on a show.

When he turns a neat handspring where he could have just as easily ducked, Dan takes it as an invitation.

-

"God," Dan breathes, as Rorschach lets him spread his legs impossibly wide. "God."


	14. Bloody Nightmare

_Written for the comment_fic community on lj – the theme was _cocktails _and the prompt was _bloody nightmare.

* * *

There's blood on Rorschach's trench coat. It's all over his scarf and fedora too, and there are streaks of it congealing on the latex of his mask. More of it drips sluggishly from the ends of his gloved fingers, and leaves a viscous arc of dark spots on the concrete floor of the warehouse.

"Oh my god," Dan says, staring at his partner. "You look like a nightmare creature. I mean, more so than usual."

The stuff smeared over part of his mask seems black in the low light; it obscures the coil and turn of the inkblots beneath. It's as though half his face has frozen and it renders him half-formed, grotesque in his asymmetry. It doesn't seem to be bothering him, but it spooked the hell out of Dan for a moment.

Rorschach shrugs nonchalantly, sending a fresh patter of blood to the floor. "Good," he says. Then, "Don't worry, not mine." A pause. "Mostly."

"I figured. It can't all be yours unless you're _inside out_, Jesus."

No doubt Rorschach is glaring at him, but since he can't make out any particular configuration of blots, Dan is happy to ignore that fact.

"I mean, what the hell, man. Did you go diving into an offal vat?"

"Not voluntarily," Rorschach says, peevishness creeping into his usual gruff monotone.

"You fucking reek."

Rorschach grunts. It's a familiar noise, and it usually means: 'I'll let that one slide, but don't push it'.

Dan favors him with a broad grin while he calls the Archimedes by remote, guiding the airship to hover close by, hatch open. The fabric of Rorschach's pinstripes is soaked through, already stiffening and beginning to flake as he climbs aboard.

Dan radios in and tips off the local precinct house, rattles off their location and the nature of the criminals they've left trussed up, while Rorschach slumps into the co-pilots chair (Dan cringes inwardly; the leather upholstery is a bitch to get clean).

Rorschach peels off his trench coat and the suit jacket, unwinds his scarf, muttering under his breath all the while. The stench is something else: iron-rust and salt and decomposition.

"Estimation of Meatpacking District dropped several more notches," he grouses. "Was already very poor. Now on par with dockside." He kicks off one shoe; his sock is threadbare, neatly-darned and leeched a deep crimson.

"Yeah. I remember when you fell in there, too."

Dan laughs as Rorschach lurches up to push him against the wall of the airship. His dress shirt is in slightly better shape than the rest of his costume; only the cuffs and collar are heavily stained. He hooks up his mask and dried blood is crusted in the rough lines of his face. He looks thoroughly unimpressed.

"Okay, okay," Dan says, with what he hopes is a disarming grin. "Sorry, man. It wasn't so funny at the time." He slips a hand under Rorschach's vest to playfully snap his suspenders.

Rorschach bares his teeth – there's even blood in his mouth, delineating crooked teeth – and attempts to give Dan the most revolting kiss imaginable, even with Rorschach's usual standards of hygiene taken into account.

"Oh god, no," Dan splutters, deflecting him with a palm to his cheek. "That's gross, buddy."

"Problem shared, Daniel," Rorschach says, and smears a hand down Dan's face. "Solves nothing, but you'll get used to the smell."

"_Thanks_. Now we're _both_ walking biohazards." He extricates himself, and flips the overhead switches to set Archie flying homeward. "Shower, when we get back."

"No."

"Yes. You're disgusting."

"No."

"You aren't getting that mess all over my sheets."

"No."

"Seriously, man."

"...if you insist."


	15. The Logical Extension of Misanthropy

_Written for the comment_fic community on lj – the theme was _in three sentences _and the prompt was _misanthropy. _Drabble, for bonus points!_

* * *

He hates their wastefulness and decadence, and he hates the selfish desires that are only about gratification and self-indulgence; all grabbing and possessing of flesh or money, or both. He hates the complacency too, the indifference as they look away when there are unspeakable crimes happening under their noses – but more than that, he hates the way they sometimes stand and do nothing but watch, as though it's entertainment.

He closes his eyes as smoke seeps into the sky and hangs like a funeral pall, and takes satisfaction in the knowledge that he is no longer one of them.


End file.
